


Lesson Learned

by TonicHoliday



Category: Robot Series - Isaac Asimov
Genre: Accidents, Gen, Post-Canon, Slice of Life, Three Laws of Robotics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-28
Updated: 2020-06-28
Packaged: 2021-03-04 07:14:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,089
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24965791
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TonicHoliday/pseuds/TonicHoliday
Summary: Against Lanning’s advice, Susan had kept Randow’s broken arm from Lenny. She could keep another secret if it meant keeping the innocent robot at her side.
Relationships: Susan Calvin & Lenny
Comments: 10
Kudos: 11
Collections: Turing Fest 2020





	Lesson Learned

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lirin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lirin/gifts).



> I'm so glad you requested something from 'Lenny' as it was one of the few stories of Asimov's I hadn't gotten around to reading, and I'm _so glad_ I did. If there's something I can't resist, it's childlike robots and the humans who look after them ♥ (Also, yay for Susan Calvin requests!)
> 
> Many many thanks to my lovely beta, too.

Dr Susan Calvin had never particularly liked the taste of coffee. She had tried the many varieties available, tested them in different concentrations and combinations with almost mathematical precision, and concluded that strong black coffee with one sugar offered the desired effect in the most efficient way.

Right now, she needed to stay awake a few more hours and finish the latest task Lanning had given her. He had managed to talk her into filtering the uptick of applications they’d received since changing tack on advertising open positions. Now, US Robotics and Mechanical Men’s application process asked candidates to describe (in five-hundred words or fewer) their opinion of robots. Susan’s task was picking through those paragraphs to find which appeared most suited to working under her—possibly replacing her too; she would not pretend she did not realise that.

She held the mug of coffee up to her mouth and let the steam warm her lips for a moment before trying a sip. It was still a little too hot to drink, so she placed it atop the small stack of rejected applications piled face-down on the desk beside her. 

The LNE prototype, who up until then had been sitting quietly in a corner leafing through an image-heavy reference book Susan had given it to occupy itself with—which of course, it couldn’t understand—was suddenly stood on the other side of her desk, alert and interested.

“What is it, Lenny?” Susan asked, looking up from the application she was perusing.

With one of its beautiful, tinkling vocalisations, Lenny held out its hand and let it hover a few inches above the coffee mug. Steam curled up from the liquid around the robot’s metal fingers, and it shifted it around with gentle motions of its hand, transfixed. Susan studied its reaction, belatedly realising the potential danger when Lenny’s fingertip clinked absentmindedly against the white china.

“No,” Susan said, clear and succinct. She pushed Lenny’s hand away gently. “Do not touch that, Lenny.”

Lenny’s hand fell limp to its side as the order sunk into its positronic brain. No matter how inferior its construction, Lenny would know intrinsically to follow any instruction it was given by a human. It did not leave, however. Still apparently mesmerised by the steaming drink, the robot shuffled around the edge of Susan’s desk and peered down into the dark liquid.

It was hard to concentrate on the applications with Lenny towering over her, so Susan decided to demonstrate the purpose of the drink to the inquisitive robot. She picked up the mug by its handle, took a sip of coffee that had only barely reached a drinkable temperature, then placed it back down carefully on the papers. Lenny followed each of her movements with eyes designed to pinpoint the slightest variation in spectrographic scans and find weaknesses in boron ores the size of microns, that were now finding wonder in something as ordinary and insignificant as a mug of black coffee. 

“This is coffee,” Susan said, touching the mug’s handle again. "Coffee." As she did, the surface of the liquid rippled, and Lenny lowered its head to inspect the effect more closely.

A finger in its mouth, Lenny studied the subtle vibrations moving across the liquid’s surface, the reflection of himself and the private office of the woman he called Mommie shuddering inside the confines of the mug’s china. Once it stilled, Lenny knocked its large hand against the desk and cooed melodically when the surface trembled again.

Before Susan could react, Lenny tugged at the stack of applications beneath the mug. It was a movement so swift she thought the papers might slip out from beneath like the tablecloth in a magician’s trick, leaving the mug still standing where it was. 

Instead, it toppled, hot coffee flooding over the table, the applications, and spilling over onto Susan’s lap. She leapt from her seat to escape being burned, and only just managed it. Lenny simply watched as the brown liquid spread across the surface and soaked into Susan’s grey skirt.

“Lenny!” she snapped, snatching up some of the papers that had avoided a dousing and holding them aloft. “I told you not to . . .”

Then, it dawned on the doctor. Not to touch the mug was her instruction, and Lenny had obeyed. The robot had touched the table and the papers beneath, but not the mug itself.

Additionally, Lenny did not understand that the hot liquid could harm her—it had witnessed her drink it without issue. How was Lenny’s aborted brain expected to know the differences in temperature tolerance across the human body? It might not even understand the concept of temperature at all outside the realm of boron mining. At this early stage of Lenny’s development, it would be prudent to keep it ignorant of that too, if Susan were to keep its positronic pathways getting tied in knots.

Against Lanning’s advice, Susan had kept Randow’s broken arm from Lenny. She could keep another secret if it meant keeping the innocent robot at her side: Lanning did not need to know about this, and Lenny did not have to know the harm he might have caused a human. Hopefully, he never would. 

Looking down at the mess Lenny had made of her desk, Susan sighed. That was her life, though, wasn’t it? Cleaning up messes made by robots.

Incorrect. Her job was cleaning up messes made by humans, finding where human error had resulted in robots being misunderstood. In this case, the error was hers, and it was handling hot coffee around Lenny, a drink for which she now had another reason to dislike.

“You’re right, Lenny,” she said, sliding the rescued applications into a space on the bookshelf behind her desk. “It’s far too late for coffee.”

She wiped the desk clean, tossed the ruined papers into the trash, then led Lenny to her personal laboratory, where it would remain safely locked away until morning.

Tomorrow, Susan would likely be accused of ruining the applications on purpose, to which she would explain that her error would only result in better applicants: if they were genuinely interested in the positions, they would gladly send another copy of their applications. She could already picture her colleagues’ dubious expressions, Lanning’s in particular, his fierce white eyebrows drawing together irritably.

The thought of Lenny softened the impending blow. Lenny would only ever look at the doctor with childlike awe and intrigue, and she would always be there to guide her new charge in the right direction.


End file.
